Falconer and the Rain of Blood

by Ian Morson

  *

  Robert Chetwyn was having a restless night, what with the threat of pox, and the proscription by the chancellor on giving lectures. He was a regent master whose life was ruled by orthodoxy and routine. He had few students lodging at Nevill’s Inn in Shidyerd Street because students were generally an unruly bunch with no regard for regularity. They didn’t care for a master who demanded order. In fact he only had three clerks lodging with him at present, and his income was suffering. But better that his purse was light than his temper was taxed overmuch. Now, he could not even give lectures, and the boys lodging with him were already getting restless at being kept indoors. He lay perfectly still on his back, his arms at his side and his eyes closed, praying for sleep. Then he thought he heard the latch on his front door being lifted. Or was it next door? His door was hard by that of Beke’s Inn, and visitors often mistook the one for the other. He wasn’t sure even if he had heard the sound, but then it didn’t matter all that much for it was overtaken by the clatter of horse’s hooves on the street outside. Who could be riding around Oxford so late, and on a night when movement had been forbidden by the constable? He might have got up then, and been a better witness later, but curiosity was not in his makeup. He merely cursed the transgressor, and pulled the bedclothes up around his ears. Then just as he was dozing off a loud thumping sound from Beke’s Inn roused him again.

  This time he sat up in bed.

  Listening, he wasn’t sure if he could hear a human cry or not from the other side of the wall that divided Beke’s from Nevill’s Inn. Then there came another loud thump. Like a body falling to the floor. He could ignore the sounds no longer, and got up. He padded barefoot across his solar to the shuttered window that looked out on to the street. Though it was still quite dark, he saw a shadowy figure crossing the street.

  *

  Will Plome was shivering as he dragged open the door, and peered out into the narrow street. What was inside the house scared him nearly to death, but what was outside was almost as fearful. The horse he had heard earlier stood like a statue at the corner, its head bowed to the ground. It was a monster of a horse that glistened like silver in the light of the full moon. He glanced nervously up and down the street, mortally afraid of what else he might see. A rustling noise from somewhere behind the church made him gasp, his indrawn breath like the last rattle of a dying man. Flattening himself against the door, he pressed his hands on the rough surface as if trying to sink into the oak and disappear. He only began to breathe again when a rat scuttled out of a heap of rubbish that had been piled against the church wall and off along the open drain that ran down the lane. The horse made a faint whinnying sound, and raised its weary head to stare incuriously at him. A cloud of steam issued from its nostrils, and he imagined he saw the Devil breathing smoke and fire. He suppressed a squeal of horror.

  The night had turned into a scene from one of those plays he had seen performed so often. The Harrowing of Hell.

  Then afterwards he harrowed hell,

  And took those wretches from within;

  Fought worthily with fiends so fell,

  For souls that sunken were in sin …

  The words rung in his ears like the bells of the church across the lane. What had happened in that house that night would remain with him forever. Fear of it finally propelled him forwards. He pushed himself away from the door, and made a dash for the sanctuary of the church. He left two bloody hand-marks on the surface of the oak.

  *

  It was almost dawn and Bullock had received an urgent message to go to some incident at the back of St Frideswide’s Church. The details were unclear, and Falconer would have gone with him, but the constable asked him to stay and wait for Doukas.

  ‘If it is a matter concerning the university or your book thief, I will send for you.’

  Falconer reluctantly agreed and waited. And waited. He had almost dozed off when he saw a shadowy figure move slowly across the castle courtyard. It seemed to be a strange humpbacked apparition with its head set to one side. The moon had fled behind heavy, dark clouds and the monster was at first indistinct. Then, as it got closer, Falconer made it out. Doukas had returned, and he was bearing a shroud-covered body over his left shoulder. A lesser man might have been weighed down by such a burden, but Doukas walked easily. He crossed to the patch of beaten earth beside the old chapel, and laid the body down on the ground. Quietly, Falconer slipped out of the room, and descended the stone steps to the ground floor. Aldwyn was sleeping soundly, so Falconer carried on out to where Doukas was already toiling with a spade, making a hole in the ground to accept the crusader’s body. The Greek grunted in acknowledgement of Falconer’s presence, and carried on digging.

  ‘I thought it best to bury the body while it was still dark. The jongleurs …’ He tilted his head towards the chapel, where the Pepers and the rest of the troupe had made their beds. ‘… they might get a bit skittish seeing the cause of the pox right before their eyes.’

  ‘Bullock didn’t tell them he was bringing the body here?’

  Doukas shook his head, his tail of hair swishing round his shoulders.

  ‘He doesn’t want anyone to know. Few in the town know it was a crusader brought the pox to Dagville’s Inn. And the innkeeper will be guaranteed to keep his mouth shut, if he values his future business.’

  He paused while he relentlessly made the hole deeper. Then he looked up at Falconer again, wiping the sweat from his brow.

  ‘Myself, I would tell them the truth. There are those who will jump to conclusions, and find scapegoats for the outbreak. Foreigners will have a bad time.’

  Falconer knew exactly what the Greek was saying. There were plenty of people in England, and in Oxford indeed, ready to blame the Jews for any disaster that occurred. It did not matter if it were a national catastrophe, or the mere breaking of a valuable possession in someone’s house, there would always be a person ready to point a finger at the Jews because of it. On the other hand, he suddenly remembered that the Dagvilles knew Samson and Saphira had attended to the crusader before he died. It would be so easy to twist the truth, and despite Samson’s brave efforts, somehow accuse him and Saphira of colluding in his death at the very least. If not that, then of infecting the town deliberately themselves. If the facts of the crusader’s last hours were known, blame could be shifted to the Jewish community anyway. It would be better to cover up the cause of the pox’s arrival in Oxford while people still felt vulnerable and afraid.

  He gave Doukas a helping hand in scrambling out of the makeshift grave.

  ‘I think on balance it is better that we bury the evidence for the time being. The Jews here are used to being blamed for all sorts of ills. They have sturdy stone properties and good oak doors, and are used to keeping their heads down in times of trouble. Come, let’s get this body buried.’

  Doukas shrugged his shoulders, and took one end of the linen-shrouded body. Falconer stooped and lifted the other end. Together they heaved the crusader into his grave. After he had made a perfunctory sign of the cross in the Greek way, Doukas began backfilling the hole. The dry earth pattered down on the grey linen cloth that was Sir Hugo de Wolfson’s shroud, and soon his body was covered over.

  Chapter Thirteen

  The Feast of St Hildegard, 17th September

  Bullock stared down at the bed and the bloody mess that was Edmund Ludlow’s head. He had sent for Falconer almost immediately, but so far there was no sign of him.

  ‘Jesu Christ, where is William, when you want him?’

  He prodded the point of his sheathed sword into the floorboards, and using it as a support, eased his creaking body down. Kneeling uncomfortably over the body, he poked at the man’s greyish linen night-shirt, lifting it from the body to see if anything was hidden under it. He saw the edge of a crushed parchment roll beneath the man’s chest, and teased it out. Pressing out the creases against the floor with his palm, he was disappointed to see only gibberish. He started to get up off his knees,
but they protested, and he groaned. He felt a hand grab his arm, and he looked round, surprised that Falconer had crept up on him without him hearing.

  ‘There was a time when a man who sneaked up on me like that would have had a knife in his belly.’

  He grumbled, but was grateful for his friend helping him back on to his feet. He pointed at the body.

  ‘We have another one.’

  When Bullock had arrived at the scene of the reported incident that had taken him away from the castle, he had been confronted by a whey-faced regent master. The man rented a small hall at the back of St Frideswide’s, where he had the care of three scholars of the university. Nevill’s Inn was in the middle of a row of properties opposite the corner of Frideswide’s Lane and Shidyerd Street. Though the small community was keeping indoors because of the fear of pox, Master Chetwyn said his attention had been drawn to the horse loose on the street outside their hall. He didn’t suppose his neighbour, Edmund Ludlow, had a visitor himself and the man had only one young boarder in Beke’s Inn. So the presence of such a large destrier, undoubtedly the property of a knight, had filled him with curiosity. Venturing out on to the street, he had noticed that Ludlow’s door was ajar. Uncertain of what he might find, and fearful that the plague had visited his neighbour, he had walked up to the door. He had pushed it wide open, and was horrified to find blood on his hand. He had called out, and had heard a low moan like someone in extremis. Stepping over the threshold, he had seen blood dripping through the ceiling.

  Even as he had later babbled out his story to a weary constable, who had hardly got any sleep, he was still not sure if it was murder or small pox that had struck Ludlow down. Bullock now knew for sure which it was. The man’s brains were all over his bedding.

  Now it was Falconer’s turn to crouch over the body, which he did with greater ease than Bullock.

  ‘He has been hit several times with a club or some such heavy object. This is different from the other death. It looks more deliberate rather than done on the spur of the moment by a thief caught stealing books. Are you sure this is our book thief striking again?’

  Bullock grunted, and pointed out the open chest standing at the back of the solar.

  ‘It’s been rifled of all its contents, I would say. At least, there are no books in it, and I would expect that to be the place where Ludlow kept what he had.’

  Falconer rose and walked over to the dark, polished chest. The large metal lock had been forced, and shards of fresh wood showed through the otherwise deeply coloured surface. It was empty, so whatever books Ludlow had cherished were gone.

  ‘All taken, then.’

  ‘Except for this.’

  Bullock held out the crumpled roll of parchment that he had discovered under the regent master’s body.

  ‘It lay underneath him, as if he was trying to hide it from the thief’s clutches. But I can’t read what it says.’

  Falconer took the scroll from Bullock’s outstretched hand, and opened it out. Frowning a little, he scanned the lines of text. It was a while before he recognised it for what it was.

  ‘It in Greek, and is some old poem about a hero called Digenis.’

  He pointed at the lines not obscured by Ludlow’s blood.

  ‘This bit reads - Blood flowed down over their horse-trappings, and their sweat ran out over their breastplates.’

  ‘Curiously apt, isn’t it? Especially as there was a horse standing out in the lane. A knight’s horse with all its barding on — great plates of bronze. As if it was going into battle.’

  Falconer could not immediately figure out what all this meant, if anything at all.

  ‘I saw an empty chamber downstairs. Was there someone else in the house?’

  ‘Yes, a student of some means. He is next door now.’

  ‘Hmm. And where is it now, the horse?’

  ‘I had it taken back to the castle.’

  ‘Then let’s go back there, and see if we can puzzle it all out.’

  He looked down at the dead man.

  ‘Ludlow wasn’t known as someone who harboured controversial texts like the other masters who have suffered thefts.’

  He waved the scroll.

  ‘This was more in his line. Old manuscripts that none could find bothersome.’

  Bullock couldn’t see that the type of books taken mattered one jot. But he understood that his friend knew more than he did about the book thefts, as Falconer had been charged by William de Bosco to ferret out the thief. He agreed to meet Falconer at the castle shortly, and set about arranging the disposition of the body.

  It was Falconer’s intention as he left Beke’s Inn to visit Saphira. Even though assemblies of people were forbidden in Oxford for the time being, he did not think there would be any danger in his meeting her. Both of them had been in contact with the same people and the same risks already. But as he left Ludlow’s house, he was hailed by a slight, stooped man standing just inside the door of the next house. Without his eye-lenses, he couldn’t make out who it was, so he approached him closer. But his action caused the man to rear away, and he even made to push the door closed.

  ‘Don’t come any closer, Master Falconer. The pox is abroad and I don’t want to catch it.’

  Falconer recognised the voice more than the features of the man. It was Regent Master Robert Chetwyn, a timid man at the best of times, who taught the seven disciplines with a strict adherence to orthodoxy. He held up his hands, palm outwards, in a propitiatory gesture.

  ‘I am coming no closer, Master Chetwyn. What is it you wanted to say to me?’

  Relieved that Falconer was now keeping his distance, Chetwyn pulled his door open again.

  ‘It was I found the body, and at first I feared it might be the plague. I have three students here, and their safety is my responsibility. If this is murder instead, and is to be laid at the door of the book thief, then you should look in St Frideswide’s for him.’

  ‘And why should I do that?’

  ‘I heard a noise last night. Well, a lot of noise actually, and it woke me. First there was the sound of a horse’s hooves clattering down the lane, and then later I heard some sort of thumps from next door.’

  Falconer assumed that those sounds had heralded the ending of Edmund Ludlow’s life.

  ‘Thank you, that is very interesting.’

  Falconer started to turn away, thinking that the man’s observations were of little consequence. Chetwyn, however, had more to say.

  ‘I was wary of looking out at the time, because of the pox, you understand.’

  Falconer thought it was more likely that Chetwyn had been scared to do so in case he put his own life in danger, and he met the same fate as his neighbour.

  ‘Is that all you can tell me?’

  Chetwyn screwed up his face in annoyance.

  ‘No, of course not. I was telling you how I found the body. I didn’t look out immediately, as I said, but the continuing sound of the horse was too much to keep me in bed. I resolved to complain to Ludlow, and got up. When I saw his door ajar, I began to be concerned, especially when I saw the blood.’

  Chetwyn’s voice broke at his recollection of the scene, and Falconer thought he was about to faint. But then he rallied and carried on.

  ‘And then after a few moments I heard another noise. It was a sort of moan, and it put me in mind of someone with the plague. I was all for leaving, but then I saw Ludlow’s boarder huddled in the corner of the hall looking quite distraught.’

  ‘Who was this student?’

  ‘Why should you wish to know?’

  ‘Just for information. I might need to talk to him later.’

  Chetwyn growled disapprovingly, as if he deemed divulging the information was unnecessary.

  ‘He has seen enough horror tonight. The sight of blood coming through the ceiling would break anyone. I brought him to Nevill’s Inn and tried to calm him.’

  Falconer imagined Chetwyn had to calm his own fears too. He persisted with his enquiries thou
gh.

  ‘And this student’s name?’

  ‘If you must know, it was Geoffrey Westhalf. But I don’t want you talking to him. His father is a very influential man.’

  Falconer wasn’t sure what relevance the wealth and power of Westhalf’s father had to do with it, other than he might object to his son being questioned about a death. But anyone was subject to the rigours of the law when a murder was being investigated.

  ‘Thank you for the information. But now I must get on.’

  Chetwyn’s next words were full of mockery.

  ‘Don’t you want to know what else I saw?’

  Falconer sighed, not wishing to play the man’s games, but knowing he would now have to ask.

  ‘What else did you see?’

  ‘Before I went next door, I was at the solar window up there.’

  He pointed up above his head to the small window in the house’s frontage.

  ‘It was from there that I observed the horse. And then beyond it in the shadows I saw him.’

  Falconer was getting impatient.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Why, the book thief, of course. Book thief and murderer, it seems. He was bent over picking up an armful of books from the ground where he must have dropped them. Then he scuttled around the back of the church and under the archway over there.’ He pointed again. ‘It leads straight into the priory grounds.’

  Falconer turned to look, and he heard the door behind him slam. Chetwyn was taking no more risk with the murderer or the plague. So he followed the narrow passage that ran along the northern side of the priory church and out to beneath the eastern façade. He could still not get over the quietness of the normally bustling town. It was only a few days since Bullock had imposed the stringent controls on the inhabitants, and de Bosco had agreed to suspend classes. But it was not enough time to have become accustomed to deserted streets, and empty churches.

  Falconer stood hesitantly at the west door, then strode inside and up the nave of St Frideswide’s. The sound of his feet echoed up into the soaring arches over his head. The interior was gloomier than usual as no candles were burning on the tall holders that stood at intervals along the length of the nave. Falconer heard a rustling sound and thought he saw a movement from behind the high altar. It was there that the shrine of the saint was located. He called out instinctively. Though, if the movement had been caused by the murderer lurking there, it was an incautious thing to do.